Talonvore Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 (edited) Bear with me as i am pretty new to the whole Oblivion modding community and i do try to find answers on my own before i start asking questions. However, I've read the OBMM wiki but it contains mostly info on how to use OBMM and not so much the process of how exactly OBBM does its thing. Object of this post is to discern exactly how OBMM works in relation to altering original game files. I'll explain what i mean. My perceived perception of how modding works is that when install a mod you naturally either add to or overwrite the original data files, thereby altering them. If its a case of jsut adding additional data i guess this is not too bad since during uninstallation OBMM would jsut delete any additional data that was added to the original, but in the case of original data actually being overwritten and altered this could be bad because if you dont like the changes well you could have a very difficult time getting the game back to an out of the box state. This is where OBMM comes in. When you use OBMM to install mods it does the work for you by installing the data into the correct folders and locations and uninstalling a mod is as simple as deactivating the mod in OBMM's menu. Given of course that you've packaged/prepared the mod correctly for OBMM. Now this is the point where im interested in exactly how OBBM works. Does OBMM somehow make copies of the unaltered game data prior to mod installation so that when you uninstall said mod , OBMM removes the mod and swaps the original game data back in?? If not then i guess i dont really see how you can get the game back to the unaltered state prior to the isntallation of the mod by uninstalling a mod with OBMM. One of the other issues i was curious about was through the process of adding and uninstalling multiple mods is there "trash data" that can be left behind sometimes. Example being that Ideally when you use the uninstall feature of windows to remove programs we all know that sometimes there is data left behind on the hard drive pertaining to a program that you have uninstalled. This could be save game data or other periphery data pertaining to the program. So i guess what im asking is does this happen with OBMM as well. Perhaps I shouild make my questions a bit cleaer: Q #1: How does OBMM deal with the process of getting the game data back to its original state when uninstalling a mod? Lets say I have the Game of The Year addition which comes out of the box already patched to 1.2.0416. I then install 10 mods through OBMM. After a while i decice to uninstall all 10 mods. When OBMM is finished uninstalling all the mods is the game data reverted back to exactly the way it was out of the box with no file corruption or missing data? Q #2: Through the process of installing and uninstalling multiple mods is there trash data left behind like sometimes occurs when you use windows uninstall process to remove program files from your computer?? As I said I have read the wiki page on OBMM and i also have tried a few google searches to find the answers to these questions. If i am somehow overlooking and obvious location of this information please excuse my ignorance. If there is already info like this posted somewhere please feel free to give me the link to it, would be much appreciated!! Edited March 4, 2011 by Talonvore Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skevitj Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 1) As far as I know, OBMM doesn't alter any existing files (ignoring the ones for determining activated mods), apart from Oblivion's ini file if a OMOD's installation requests it (and the change is undone during removal). Mods are just a collection of files which are loaded in addition to the Game's standard resources or are loaded in preference to any identical version in the game's BSA files. They don't actually change any game files, hence installing/uninstalling just consists of copying/deleting the files. No changes to the un-modded data files at any point whether or not OBMM is used. So removal of all mods will result in a completely unmodified game, except with a few empty, unused folders sitting in the game's data folder. 2) (Once again, AFAIK:)The mods are packaged into the OMOD format, and that contains the files which are copied during installation and deleted during removal. Hence it makes sense that anything which is installed is also removed. That fits with how I've seen it operate. There may be a few folders left behind, but even if that still happens, it's hardly a problem. All that said, I know nothing about how it works, and am just going on observations of changes to the data folder/saves/settings folders. If you want an accurate and detailed explanation, then your best bet would probably be to just send an email to a member of the OBMM team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talonvore Posted March 4, 2011 Author Share Posted March 4, 2011 Skevitj thanks for your reply actually the info you have provided me is exactly what i was looking for. Very good explanation. Than you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theNiceOne Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 (edited) Skevitj's explanation is correct, but there is one important point to consider related to question 1. If you install two omods with overlapping files, when installing the second, OBMM will tell you about the conflict and give you the choice between overwriting with the files from omod2 or keeping the files from omod1 (you can even choose for each individual file). However regardless of what you choose, OBMM registers that the files are now owned by both omods, but does not otherwise keep track of which version of the files you used. What this means is that if you uninstall omod2 only, OBMM will not remove the shared files (since omod 1 also owns them, but will of course remove them when uninstalling omod 1 too), but will also not restore omod 1's versions of the files. So you're left with omod 1 installed with omod 2 version of the files that were shared. To rectify this (if it is a problem), you can uninstall and then reinstall omod 1. BAIN (the installation tool that comes with Wrye Bash) also remembers which version of the file that belongs to which archive (it doesn't use omods), and therefore even reinstalls archive 1's version of the files when you uninstall archive 2. This is BAIN's main advantage over OBMM. The main disadvantage is that it is more complex to use (and you hardly get any help from installation scripts). So although I personally prefer BAIN over OBMM for mods that don't rely on omod installation scripts, I generally recommend OBMM to newcomers. Edited March 4, 2011 by theNiceOne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talonvore Posted March 5, 2011 Author Share Posted March 5, 2011 Thanks for the info theNiceOne. Its good to know these things for future reference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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